Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Lesson for the day.... always file a grievance if you have one!

I have to make this sort of brief since I have to go to work soon, but I wanted to put this out there so everyone can learn from my lesson.

Last September, while I was pregnant with Annabelle, I was really sick. I spent several stints in the hospital. I was also in college full time through University of Phoenix. The hospital that I use didn't have access to the internet for patients, so I was unable to post to class for an entire week. I was auto dropped from the class.

Because I was sick, and I was going to have a new baby, I was advised I could take some time off school. I had a balance remaining because of the dropped class and another previous class that I had not done so well in. I was told this balance would be covered by financial aide when I returned to school, and that I had up to 180 days to do so.

When I contacted UoP in January to return to school I was told that I could not. I was told I had to pay my balance in full before I was able to schedule another class. My account was sent to collections and I had to resolve it before they could do anything else. Seen as I had just taken 4 months off of work due to illness and maternity leave this just wasn't possible. So here I was, left with a nearly $3,000 balance to pay off, and my student loan deferment coming to an end in April. Yikes...

I contacted another university to see if I could start classes with them so that I didn't have to pay my student loans at this time. While doing all the paperwork I came across a place to file a grievance toward UoP. I did just that....

Fast forward to today... I received a call saying that the University of Phoenix is allowing me to come back and that my balance WILL be covered by financial aide, and since I will be in school again, my student loans will be deferred. It literally took DAYS after I filed the grievance for UoP to resolve the issue where as no one listened to me for almost 2 months without it.

So, long story short... always find a way to file a grievance if you have one!

That's great that it got resolved AND you don't have to pay those bills!! DF went to UoP for his Bachelor's and Master's in Psychology. He loved the program and the school. He's now at Central Michigan University for his second Master's and he's considering going back to UoP he loved it that much! I told him go for it. Once he finishes his Master's here he's switching to do his PhD with UoP again!